Keeping an Interior Work Area Clean

Woodworking projects are notorious for creating a mess. Wood shavings and saw dust will fall everywhere and migrate far from the work area! There is a simple trick to keep the mess contained and not impede on the project itself.

The trick is to work in an area with no breeze, so that any dust or shavings will fall vertically, then place a moist paper towel under the work site. The wood shavings and saw dust will fall on the moist paper towel and stick to it! This will let you work away without fear, and have a single piece of paper to fold up with the mess. The paper can be folded up to contain the issue and disposed of easily. 

This trick works well for wood, but it also works well with metal (though I would personally make it a wider area of paper towel). Next time you have a project, enjoy being able to fix it quickly and clean up even quicker! 

Wooden Doors Not Closing

Wood on a boat is subject to a lot of dimensional changes in size as humidity and temperatures change the moisture content of the wood. Wooden doors are going to swell and shrink as the air in the boat becomes moist or dry. 

The doors in our table (where we store our linens) are rather large, so a small percentage in dimensional change will equate to some significant movement in the wood. 

These doors used to close easily, but after a rather most winter, the wood swelled slightly, but caused the doors edge to migrate a few millimeters. Now the doors overlap instead of closing. The solution will be to trim the wood at an angle to allow the latches to meet and the doors to close.

Using a block plane, I was able to slowly and carefully bevel the edge of the door to allow the edge to pass the latch and the doors to close effortlessly.

With the wood trimmed off and the doors closing easily, the fresh wood was then given a few coats of varnish to seal it up and protect it from future moisture. Varnish doesn't make wood waterproof, but it does help. Varnished wood is sealed up and fed well with the oils and resins in the varnish. This creates a barrier to keep the moisture out, or at least slow the ingress of moisture.  

With some simple hand tools, the problem of a non closing door can be fixed and cruising life can continue on without a hitch! 

Ocean Watch Keeping

When close to shore, there is much more boat traffic around you. This necessitates a more frequent watch keeping is vital to safe boating. Close to shore you will encounter commercial traffic, fishing traffic, day sailors, and small powerboats that are out for a joy ride. They will be weaving around you as you try to make your way to your destination.

Luckily, this traffic only seems to occur within a few miles of shore. Once you reach around 10 miles out to sea, especially by night, the amount of traffic quickly diminishes. Out in the ocean, you will rarely encounter another boat, and if you do it is most likely a commercial vessel. Commercial vessels all broadcast an AIS signal that can be picked up via a receiver. Having an AIS proximity alarm which will sound a loud alarm if a vessel will come within a set distance of you is a great way to add piece of mind to your voyage offshore. 

Since recreational traffic is seldom to none, you can relax a bit as you sail along, allowing you to further space out your watch schedule. During the day, we will hang out in the cockpit or companionway, looking around every 30 minutes to 1 hour. At night we will space our watches to 40 minutes to 1 hour. Our rate of watches depends on our speed through the water and the amount of traffic. 

If we are close to a major port or inlet, there will be a lot of traffic and we will stand watch continuously until we have cleared the area. When out in the open ocean, far from any other vessel, we will space out the watches and allow ourselves to get some much needed sleep. 

Now, sleeping for only 1 hour at a time will not give you restful regenerative sleep, but it will get you through the night. Having a second person on board will allow you to get hours of continuous sleep while they are on watch and you can sleep. If you are alone or the other person is incapacitated (and sea sickness will incapacitate someone) then you might find yourself carrying out this hourly watch/sleep schedule. 

Obviously, looking around for only once every hour is far from ideal in terms of keeping a proper lookout, if you are alone then it must be done. When you are sailing fast, you will have to look more often. When you are sailing slowly in light winds, you can then afford to sleep for a longer period of time. If you heave to for the night, you would be able to sleep the entire night without moving and get a full nights rest! 

Ocean sailing can be fun and enjoyable, but there are logistical concerns that need to be addressed when you head offshore. Finding solutions to what may at first seem like a problem is the key to cruising long distances.  

In time, you will find comfort and relaxation at night by being far from shore and out to sea where you are alone and able to sleep well. 

Keeping Watch

Sailing offshore means that you will be sailing out in the middle of the ocean with nothing but water all around you. As you sail, the scenery will consist only of waves. This may seem fun or interesting at first, but after a few hours, the monotony will bore you. 

You might feel inclined to go inside or take a nap, not keeping a lookout as your boat sails itself. While this might seem tempting since there is obviously nothing around you, the truth is this is very dangerous. 

When you don't keep a lookout, you run the risk of running into that one other boat on this huge expanse of open water. There is plenty of space, but boats paths will intersect, hopefully not at the same time! 

Keeping a good lookout is vital to safely making ocean passages, but the truth is, you don't have to look all the time. What you really need to do is look most of the time. 

The trick to it is to scan the horizon periodically for any other vessel and then go inside for a rest while you tackle some other aspect of sailing. Taking a break from looking will refresh your eyes so that you will be more alert to a new vessel in the distance when you look again. 

To figure out how often to look, you need to evaluate your speed and your ability to see. You can only see as far as the horizon. When you look, you can see if there are any vessels between you and the horizon. If everything is clear, then you can relax until you reach the horizon again and do another lookout.  

As you can imagine, this means that you will be looking around every 15 minutes or so, 15 minutes is not enough time for a good restful deep sleep, only enough for a nap. I like to refer to this schedule as "sleep sailing" where I have an alarm set next to me and I sleep at the helm.  

The windvane is steering and the sails are balanced, so all you need to do is keep a lookout. You can doze off, and when the alarm goes off, you look around and make sure the horizon is clear, then go back to sleep. 

Natural Beauty

When cruising, you will encounter the world in a way most never imagine. You will come a cross wildlife that rarely sees humans, and wildlife that is so accustomed to human interaction that it will seem unfazed.

This Great Egret came right up to us as we landed our dinghy on the dinghy dock. He appeared to want a handout of some sort and was rather incessant about it. While we did not feed him, we were able to get some amazing views of this majestic bird up close!!